- > -'s Quotes

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one.”
― E. M. Cioran

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”
― Emil Cioran, Tears and Saints

“She respected her husband in the same way as she respected the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed: and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

“A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives--all bear secret relations to our destinies.”
― François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe

“I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.”
― Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

“When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.”
― Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”
― David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays

“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”
― David Hume

“Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness.”
― David Hume

“The truth springs from arguments amongst friends.”
― David Hume

“He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper, but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstance.”
― David Hume

“It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause”
― David Hume

“Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? ... I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
― David Hume

“When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.”
― David Hume

“Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.”
― David Hume

“Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains upon your account; and should I labour with you upon my own account, in expectation of a return, I know I should be disappointed, and that I should in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone; You treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.”
― David Hume

“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them”
― David Hume

“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception…. If any one, upon serious and unprejudic'd reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu'd, which he calls himself; tho' I am certain there is no such principle in me.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

“The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we’re talking about.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

“Stercus accidit.”
― David Hume

“All knowledge degenerates into probability.”
― David Hume

“It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.”
― David Hume

“Celibacy,fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude and the whole train of monkish virtues...Stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper...A gloomy hair-brained enthusiast, after his death, may have a place in the calendar, but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delerious and dismal as himself.”
― David Hume

“As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.”
― David Hume, The Natural History Of Religion

“The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.”
― David Hume, The History of England 1